


Freedom

by mothra_leo



Category: Halloween Movies - All Media Types, Hellraiser (Movies)
Genre: AU, Blood and Gore, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Pinhead is his own warning, Specifically @slasherholic's Michael, stinky boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24331018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothra_leo/pseuds/mothra_leo
Summary: This is fanfic specifically relating to slasherholic's Michael. I made a joke about using the puzzle box as a solution to him (stinky boy. Bad Shape), and then this happened. :D Kirsty is somewhat influenced by the AUs where people have her and Laurie and others helping people.Serious summary: The reader has sheltered Michael, to their great personal cost. Today, Michael's curiosity becomes his undoing, and the reader's potential salvation.
Kudos: 5





	Freedom

You didn't know. How could you have known?

You were just playing with the box. You'd taken it into your hands, idly toying with it as you sat on the couch. It was definitely a puzzle, and one that probably sells for a lot of money, considering that it's wood and metal instead of plastic. It looks old. You've never seen anything like it.

Michael was there. He'd been watching you; not taking you into his lap for his own interests, today; just watching. He had found it in the first place. Had he taken it off a victim? Perhaps. You don't know and you aren't asking. You're just grateful that he's in a staring mood tonight, and not looking for anything else.

You're used to being hyperaware of what he's doing. Perhaps this has dulled your awareness of other things. You didn't really notice the way the air pressure in the room changed, not until the box opened and light started pouring in around the cracks in the doorway.

Then, a seam had opened up in the front wall, splitting your curtained front window in half, and you simply watched in confusion. There was a hallway there, bounded by an arch that surely hadn't existed before that moment, and you don't know what to do now.

Your life has been out of control for a while now, and this is beyond you.

You look at Michael, only to find that he, too, is watching it (is he curious? Did he know-?), and part of you hopes spitefully that he's _entertained_ by this. You can smell it. Dust, age- and copper. You know that scent too well. Forget that it's a fucking interdimensional hallway; it's known blood.

Then, Michael turns his head. He focuses with an intensity that you know. Someone is there. You turn-

You see them.

_Oh, shit._

The man is tall, and wide, and dressed maybe in leather, and something about his lips looks very off. They're very full, and too weirdly _big_. He is walking forward with a measured step, from out of another lengthy hallway, and soon he will be standing in your living room. You realize there are more hallways, more impossible openings in your wall-

And other people crossing the threshold.

A bald, gently featured- woman? With- you don't know how she can look so calm with her throat eviscerated that way. And it's not casual injury. Not to kill, not as Michael would cut her. It's been done carefully, supported by metalwork set into her skin-

If it wasn't impossible to _live_ with a wound like that, you'd say it was meant for her to live like that.

The third, tallest, is chattering and eyeless and his size reminds you a bit of Michael. It's enough to make you want to shrink away from him, to melt into the couch-

Michael knew, you think. _He gave it to me on purpose. He knew and he gave it to me to see what would happen, if I would fall into yet another predicament, fuck things up for myself again._

Could he have known, though? Part of you thinks that this is outre even by Michael's standards. This is high-magic bullshit, and he's not an educated bastard. Only a clever one.

And what the hell are they?

You look back at the window-archway (and isn't that weird? You're seeing the outside around it, through the halves of your bay window, with an unchanged perspective-- as if there was no distance from one end of the arch to the other-- weird)- and you see another.

He is bald, too. But the scars that cross his skin transcend concern and venture into disbelief. And the pins. There's no way, right? They can't be sunk into his skull like that-

His eyes are on you. The look on his face is serene and arch and eager in a way you don't like. You wonder what these- people- are here to do. Are they demons? What else could they be? It's ironic, because you'd figured that surely Michael had something of the otherworld about him, and in comparison, this is almost cartoonishly on point-

They all stop.

They were definitely filing in. They've stopped in their tracks. You survey the arrivals, seeing them each turn their heads-

They're looking at Michael now.

Technically, you have an opportunity to run, but your sense of self-preservation is chasing its tail in anxiety. They saw Michael and they're _not sure what to do_. Can it be that even beings of whatever nature they are are afraid of him--?

You realize that you were, very distantly, interested in the prospect of encountering people stronger than he was. Someone who could do something about Michael. You didn't realize it, but you were, and now, you have the horrible idea that they might see him and simply leave you alone with him. After all, surely that's a greater hell--

Oh, God, you think.

“There is no god here,” a hoarsely female voice says. You turn and realize it's the flayed-throat one speaking. No kidding, you think.

She smirks faintly. They can hear even that, then.

“What are you?” The pinned man asks Michael. His words have a toneless, deep aura of proclamation to them. You realize that the pins really do move with his jaw. Driven into his bone. That's not possible; but, well, you've lived the impossible for a while now. Why not this now.

Michael says nothing. He's unarmed, you realize. He can't have planned for this to happen. If he had, he'd be holding a knife.

The pinned man tilts his head, and expressions cross it in such a way that you almost feel like he's perceiving answers. You are ignored; the three others pace forward in measured steps and take up points around Michael. You see a collection of alarming blades hanging from the pinned man's (robe? Garment?) and are glad for the reprieve.

“You are not our kind,” The woman whispers.

“You are not as humans are,” The pinned man declares in counter.

The chattering one grinds his teeth.

The lips one grins.

“You can not satisfy that desire here,” the pinned man says, as if responding to unheard thoughts. He's priestlike; you can almost see him calling Michael _my son_. It's like some hellish parody of religion.

Chatterman clicks his teeth repeatedly, as if laughing. Lips makes a deep, giggling rumble.

You see Michael's hand twitch. You almost shout a warning; but you don't. You're not even sure who to warn. You want to see what happens, you realize with a sort of depressed acceptance. There will be blood. Surely he'll go after the woman first-

Michael reaches up and grasps her mutilated throat. Dark liquid pours out under his hand, but she does not scream, or struggle. It's almost comedic, the way nothing happens. But then she stoically raises her arm, beckoning back down the hallway-

And something springs out at Michael from it.

It's a chain. It's anchored itself around him, in his chest, and blood blossoms out. It pulls. There's a hook on the end, you realize, and it's embedded in his body.

Then you have the ridiculous thought: these people might actually be putting an end to him. Right now. This is happening.

The Priest is fascinated by the man before them. He is not the one who has called them; but he is as unique a specimen of living human as the Priest has ever seen. He desires with a strength that should render any human useless. He balances this out with a disconnect from his presence in reality that should also render him, if not dead, then mad.

Instead, he is terribly, beautifully, and violently sane.

Michael. His name is Michael, the Priest discerns. He is the architect of the summoner's emotional state. He is not unattractive, by human standards.

The Priest thinks that they will find it an unending challenge to grant this man's desire.

It is well.

He smiles as the chains come, one by one, wrapping around Michael, and overcoming the man's unusual strength to pull him inch by inch into the labyrinth.

You watch as Michael loses his footing, hook after hook embedding itself in his skin. He loses his grip on the woman's throat. If it's blood on his hands, it's a dark, strangely blue color.

His face contorts, slightly, in frustration at the failure of his body. He says nothing. He makes no sound at all. His eyes meet yours, for one moment, as he loses the battle and is pulled away.

Your stomach flips. You're on your feet before you realize what you're doing, and you only pause because you realize that, whatever these people are, you probably can't stop them.

Michael is being taken away.

You want to help him. You should help him. He'll punish you if you don't- but that might not matter any more. You don't think you can stop this.

You want to save him, but you know that even if you could, he would not hug you close in relief. He will not kiss you in gratitude.

He wouldn't care.

It doesn't matter, you think to yourself, watching him disappear down the impossible hallway. Michael is gone. He's gone, and these- these people? They're still here. They're stronger than he was. They're in control.

 _Is this what you liked about me, Michael?_ You wonder. _I think I'm going to die, and I don't even care any more._

You stand there, eyes downcast, and wait.

This will not do, the Priest thinks, looking at the human who summoned them. He could take them, too. He has the right; they're the one who solved the puzzle box. They have such an exquisite structure of pain inside them; they even bear the remnants of physical damage, littered across their body, hidden from his eyes but plain to the Priests's other senses.

But met with his presence, they stand there passively.

They have such potential for experience. There is fear, but it is circumscribed. There is dread; he can feel it; but they do not allow themselves to truly experience it nor to come anywhere near catharsis. They simply compartmentalize and endure. It is a twisted practice, and one not instilled into them for their benefit. They have not been allowed to grow. They have been trained to become only another's toy.

This person could flourish into something truly beautiful under his tutelage-but not as long as they cannot accept his gifts with their own hands. In this emotional state, their suffering is not a pleasure but an endless, fruitless loop. Such a waste. As long as they are passive, they will be but a shadow of their potential.

That is unacceptable. The Priest can afford to be patient. They did, after all, deliver to him a very enjoyable puzzle of their own.

“Do you wish to witness his suffering?” He asks them.

_Yes. I want to see him burn in Hell, and I want to make him scream, and enjoy the expressions on his face as he writhes-_ The answer is brilliant in your mind; but you've had just long enough to stand there to get your mind together. You don't know who these people are. You don't know _what_ they are; they're capable of astonishing violence; they're breaking reality around you; and you have no idea what they're about or what else they can do to you. They're already going to _do something_ to Michael. You don't need to see it for it to happen.

You don't want to go from one man's hell to theirs.

“No. I just want to go home,” you say instead. You should be thanking them, your social conscience tells you, but you can't quite get that out. You're afraid that if you call attention to gratitude, you'll find out just how much of a side effect it is that they are helping you at all. These people are too alien to have intended something like altruism for your situation, you think.

You'd be so much more afraid if you knew how true that was.

The Priest does not entertain the option of granting the wish literally. He can, of course. This house is not a home to this person any more; but sending them home to their family would destabilize the situation further and risk his ultimate interest in them.

No. He always takes risks with this sort of dealing; but they are too potentially appetizing, and too cut off, for him to deny himself the game of trying to lure them back later.

He tries another tactic. “You have delivered to me a most curious soul,” he proclaims. His acolytes are silent; they too know what game he plays.

“I will allow you to remain, if that is your desire.”

It is a convenient fiction, he has decided. In their innocence, they have called him whilst bearing no desire that he can truthfully grant. They are no more his than Kirsty Cotton was, before she started cutting deals with him. Without that desire, he might not give them his gifts; if he took them now, they would only die as mortals did and be lost to his pleasures forever after. That first death would be delicious indeed; but it would be a true loss to end things there.

But if he could ferret out another desire, any desire, granting it would create an opening. And if they accepted his mercy, well, then-

What was that if not sharing their desire? And the act of granting it would ultimately deliver them to him in the end. He need only be patient. There is a risk that they might ultimately escape him in truth. He will take it.

By then, they might even consider him rightfully their savior.

“I'll stay,” you say uncertainly. Is that really all? Are they just going to let you stay unharmed?

The priest-is he a priest? He's clearly in charge, he's almost wearing a hellish kinky cassock, you're pretty sure that's what's happening here- only nods.

“Very well,” he says.

And in unison, they all file out.

The lights around the cracks in the doorways dim.

The walls slide shut.

And you are alone with the box and your dreadful awe.

You sleep on the couch, that first night after. You have dreams about Michael. They are full of blood and flesh. They are creatively, excruciatingly violent. And while he is hoarsely vocal, while he is writhing and in pain, there is something in the core of him that never stops staring at you. That part doesn't regret a single thing about what he's done. In the end, you think that's probably the truth of it.

He never cared.

You wake up feeling dehydrated and numb. The reluctant need for water and bathroom gets you up, and you make it through the weekend in a dull sort of functionality.

The puzzle box sits on your living room table, because you don't know what you should do with it. Somehow, despite your wild speculations, it does nothing.

Minutes turn into hours, and nothing happens. Michael doesn't show up behind you, or at your door, or in your bed.

You don't know what to do. The absence of him aches. You don't know who you are now that Michael is gone. The weight of how much he's taken from you is terrible, because it doesn't keep you from missing him.

A week later, there's a knock at your door.

You answer it, after discovering that it's not the police. It's a woman in plainclothes. She's got luxuriously pre-Raphelite hair, beautiful large eyes, and something in her demeanor that suggests determination.

The sort that actually gets away from Michael, you think. Or gets themselves killed fighting.

She sees the puzzle box behind you, and curses under her breath. “Sorry. I'm Kirsty,” she says. “I don't know what he told you, but I promise you, you shouldn't trust him,” she says to you. “Can you tell me what happened?”

She knows what it is-and she knows the priest. That's not enough to surprise you anymore. You take a deep breath and exhale. A week ago, you would never, under any circumstances, have considered saying yes. Not just because of the strangeness of your story—but because of Michael.

Now things are different; and you're surprised to discover that you might have it in you. You introduce yourself. “I don't know if I can tell it all at once,” you say. Everything around you-the open hollows of the doorways, the knowledge of corners he could turn, the phantom of his presence- they're still there. “Maybe if I wasn't in the house, it'd be easier,” you think aloud.

“Of course. I'm sorry,” she says. She has no idea, you think—but if she knows the priest, she definitely has some knowledge. Different from yours. “Want to go for coffee? I'd like to talk. I'm trying to become a counselor, and I have... particular experience with these puzzle boxes.”

You accept.

You don't get to the coffee shop. You sit in Kirsty's car, parked by the lake, at a place that you still find peaceful.

You tell Kirsty your story. She's surprised by the concept of Michael, but she believes you. It's still hard to tell her, because if Michael had known, he'd have killed Kirsty first, for knowing, and done it slowly. Then, probably, killed you for the telling. You still hate telling the story now, because despite your freedom, you are alone, and Michael won't be there to sleep next to-

The freedom is suffocating and still somehow euphoric, and you still hate it because you don't feel like you even did anything to free yourself from him.

You feel like you don't deserve freedom.

As it turns out, Kirsty is very, very good at helping you through. She knows professionals she trusts to believe strange stories. She's good at pointing out fallacies, artifacts of your rationalizations. She helps you accept your agency. She doesn't judge you. Not for Michael, not for the deaths he caused while he had you, and not for your feelings.

She's got stories about the box, too, and the Cenobites; you're not comfortable with the situation, but information is survival, and you're glad she's come to share these things with you. She's relieved you believe her, too.

The priest told her about you; that's how she knew where to go. That part you like less; but it's hard not to trust Kirsty, with her haunted eyes and determined attitude, and you wonder if even demons can have soft spots for people.

But you don't know if it's over. You're pretty sure that hell-priest had motives of his own. And if Michael ever is free again, and if some future event permits him to walk again on Earth, you don't know that he won't come back to punish you. He hurt you before; he won't hesitate again.

It's that thought that you've decided to work against. You've been given a second chance-however unintentionally. You have a life. It lays before you, and you are not going to surrender it passively-not to Michael, and not to the priest.

If it's not over, and one day you find Michael again before you, you'll face him then.

If he's pale as death, then, and clad in black leather, and scarred and chained the way he is in your nightmares, that's okay. His inner monstrosity will just match better with his outward appearance.

You won't surrender this time. Not to either of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of this depends on my assumptions about Hellraiser, which are an attempt at making sense of canon mechanics but needn't take various iterations into account. I'm assuming that people who didn't actually solve the box with an intention are sort of in-the-air regarding what the Cenobites can /do/. Is Pinhead going to get Reader, in the end? He hopes so, but it depends on whether he can convince them to agree in some part. It's likely they will have an unpleasant visit from him later on, same as Kirsty does in Hellseeker, and I don't know how it will go.  
> I do not mean it as “you have to consent to your own damnation to be damned”, I mean it as a rather Faustian outcome--since what Pinhead wants to 'teach' someone requires them surviving beyond mortality, they would need to be on board with it or they'll just die if they get torn apart (be it by his hand or not) and pass beyond his reach. (which if course might actually be a better ending, depending on your point of view).  
> Anyway, there's potential good ends to this. And there's always the option that both reader and Kirsty will figure out how to tell Elliot to go stuff it entirely.


End file.
